Guest Wi-Fi just got upgraded! Introducing Passive Optical LAN

Overview

Passive Optical LAN – POL to its friends – is a relatively new LAN technology that can dramatically improve services for hotel guests, including the all-important Wi-Fi. This is a story about guest Wi-Fi, about Ethernet versus POL, about dark versus light.

I was in Sweden recently, one of Europe’s leading lights in ultra-broadband. Fiber-to-the-home or fiber-to-the-building (FTTH/FTTB) connects around 35% of households and businesses. Services of several hundred Mbps, even up to 1 Gbps, are commonplace.